celestial love, with wisdom radiating from the became a divine humanity, the Son of God, inmost heart, in harmony with the paradisal God with us, Jesus Christ, God and Man. creation, and naming the creatures after its The subject cannot be thought of from metaown truth. This was Eden, the only heaven physical postulates, but only from a life in which has yet existed upon earth. To this harmony with it, that is to say, from the proelevated church the Lord was a divinely an- cess whereby each man subdues his own sengelic man, seen by celestial perceptions, and suality and evil, unites his outward with his even represented to the senses; for the senses inward mind, and finally becomes a spiritual opened into heaven. This church descended person even in whatever pertains to the exerthrough many periods, which are typified in cise of his senses. In the Lord however all the Word as the posterity of Adam; and its that which in us is finite, was, and is, infinite; consummation was the flood, when it perished, and thus instead, like us, of only subduing and only Noah and his sons, a lower or those hellish minds which are immediate to spiritual church, survived that suffocation ourselves, his redeeming victories over selfishwhereby the race was extinguished so far as ness and worldliness, subjugated all that is breathing the highest atmosphere was con- hellish-in the language of Swedenborg, all cerned; the Noachists however living in a the hells; and now holds them, for whosoever new dispensation, to respire a secondary re- lives in and to Him, in everlasting subjugation. ligion. Every such declension is a veritable This is redemption, and this was the final purdrowning, in which the higher perceptions pose for which the Lord assumed humanity, cease, and a certain prepared remnant of the and appeared upon this earth, his operations universal humanity survives to people a new upon which extend through all systems of dry land on a lower level. The celestial worlds, and from eternity to eternity. These church had for its spring spontaneous love; are the stages through which the Lord prethe spiritual church, on the other hand, con- sented Himself according to our need, first as science. Even the latter, however, did not a God-angel, and lastly as a God-man. stand, but its decay is written from Noah 297. "The trinity then is in, and from Jeto Abraham, when the angel of Jehovah' sus Christ, the new name of our God. The was no longer manifested to any faculty. Father is his divine love; the Son is his The two realities of the church, love, and divine wisdom, that is to say, the divinely conscience as a ground of faith, having been human form in which he is self-adapted to his destroyed in the soul, a church of formalities creatures, or a personal God; the Holy Spirit was the only descent remaining, and this was is the influence which he communicates to inthe Jewish dispensation, which however was dividuals and churches. This trinity is imnot a church, but only the representation of aged in the soul, body, and operation of evone. Obedience was the spring of this last ery man. The Father is inaccessible to us covenant, and so long as the people kept out of Christ, even as our own souls are not it, natural and national blessings were given to be reached by others but through our bodies. them from on high. At length even obe- All worship therefore is to be directed to Jedience came to an end, and neither victo-sus Christ alone; and in the heavens the ries in war, nor harvests divinely given, nor wisest angels know no other father. Thus terrors denounced by prophets, nor actual evil there is oneness and body in our adoration. fortune, could keep the people to their bond. The basis of creation could no longer support the falling superstructure. The resources of finite humanity were exhausted, and it only remained for Him who was the Creator, to become the Redeemer — for him who was the Alpha to become the Omega of his work. He came into the world by the world's ways of birth, that he might absorb the world, and be under it sustaining as above it creating, that is to say, be All in all, the First and the Last. The infinite entered the real world by the real means by the gates of generation, and the Lord became incarnate through the Virgin Mary. All his progress also was real, and through mundane laws; and thus his sensual and maternal humanity was united with his divinity by the like trials by the like education, - as we ourselves experience in the regeneration. Swedenborg's view of the Lord's life is indeed totally practical, and the life of every regenerating man is an image of that process whereby the maternal humanity - Divine Love and Wisdom. 298. "The Divine Love and Wisdom, which we notice next, furnishes the rational counterpart to the Doctrine of the Lord. It is a treatise on the divine attributes, in which affirmation and self-evidence are the method, and the truly human testifies of the divine. Man, it is clear, must think of God as a man-must think from his own experience towards divine virtues - from his own deeds towards God's deeds, which are creation. The must in this case is a necessity of our being, which is the same thing as to say, that it is God's ordinance, and the true method. It is therefore a verity substantial as our souls, nay consubstantial with their Maker. No idealism then here intervenes, but we touch the solidity of eternal truth, and in our minds and bodies we have an attestation and vision of the Creator. But if God be the infinite man, the universe which proceeds from him' must represent man in an image, and all the creatures must likewise so ture. represent. Mineral, vegetable, and animal | form in this case is determined by those to forms, nay atmospheres, planets and suns, are whom it comes. It is given in the lowest then nothing less than so many means and speech, that it may contain all speech, and be tendencies to man, on different stages of the adequate to the whole purpose of redeeming transit, and finite man resumes them all, pro- | mankind. Such a Word is the Bible. Beclaims visibly their end, and may connect them fore the present Bible, however, there existed with their fountain. It is throughout a sys- an ancient Word, (still extant, according to tem of correspondences, all depending upon Swedenborg, in Great Tartary), of which the the activity of a personal God, as the sub- Book of Jashur, the Wars of Jehovah, and stance of the latter depends upon the inter- the Enunciations formed part: this was the vention of God in history, as Jesus Christ. divine voice to an earlier humanity. The Remove from the centre of the system the Word which we now possess is written in four position that God is a man, and he becomes styles. The first is by pure correspondences necessarily unintelligible to mankind; he has thrown into an historical series; of this characmade them think of him otherwise than as he ter are the first eleven chapters of Genesis is; they communicate with him by no religion, narrating down to the call of Abraham. The but the beginning of their knowledge is dark-second style is the historical, consisting of true ness, its object a mere notion, and their love historical facts, but containing a spiritual falls into a void: there is in short no corre-sense. The third style is the prophetical. spondence between the Creator and any crea- The fourth style is that of the Psalms, beMaintain however that master position, tween the prophetical style and common and humanity is the way to the Divine Hu- speech. manity, the high road of the living truth. 301. "It is the divine sense within the let299. " The path by which God passes ter that constitutes the holiness of the Bible: through heaven into nature is laid down in those books that are wanting in this sense are distinct degrees, and 'the doctrine of degrees' not divine. The following books are the presfurnishes a principal interest with Swedenborg ent Word. in these elucidations. Degrees are the separate steps of forms or substances, the measured walk of the creative forces: thus the will in one degree is the understanding in the next, and the body in the third: the animal in the highest is the vegetable in the second, and the mineral in the lowest and all these are one, like soul and body; and are united, and each uses the lower, by the handles of its harmony with inferior utilities; just as a man is united 302. "The Word exists in the heavens with, and makes use of, the various instru- equally as upon the earth, but in its spiritual ments which extend the powers of his mind and celestial senses. Its stupendous powers and arms through nature. The world there- and properties are there evident, examples fore is full of interval and freedom, and in the of which are given by Swedenborg. If it is movements of each creature, whereby it lays read in holy moods, heaven sympathizes; the hold of whatever supports it, the whole becomes actively one, and marches forward in the realms of use, where it meets the Omnipotent again. The Sacred Scripture. 'The five books of Moses, the book of Joshua, the book of Judges, the two books of Samuel, the two books of Kings, the Psalms of David, the Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hozea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi; and in the New Testament, the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Apocalypse.' devout mind enters it as a Sheckinah, and is angel-haunted: when love and innocence read it upon earth, its inward life is perused equivalently by special angels, and the letter in correspondence becomes divine and holy. Especially so when little children read it, and its 300. "The Doctrine of the Sacred Scrip- literal sense is offered obediently to the inture is the doctrine of the Lord, and of the forming influx. In such moments the veil is manhood of God, in its middle form, for the rent, and a marriage of heaven and earth is Word is the wisdom whereby both the world consummated. The perpetual holiness of the was made and man is regenerated. It is a Word to us, depends upon no 'mechanical inlaw of divine order, that whatever is omni- spiration;' viewed as a book, the Bible is present and all-prevalent, is also in time cen- dead like other books, but the mind that aptred in its own form; for no creative attribute proaches it, is influenced as it deserves, and is lost by diffusion, but reappears in fuller spirit and life come down accordingly. The splendor when its orb is complete. This is affinities that constitute presence in the other the order of the incarnation. And so also life, illustrate the character of the Word. when the Word has created all things, and The letter. is truth in a fixed circumstance, moved through humanity, when deep has answering to the Lord and the whole heaven, called unto deep, and speech has overflowed and he who reads it aright, engenders for from human tongues, the same Word takes at himself divine and spiritual associations. last a form among its creatures, and appears Within it dwells the living God. The conamong our words as the Book of God. Its ditions of its inspiration are like those of the animation of our bodies. The letter as well which the doctrinals of Christendom are so as the body is in itself motionless and inani- commonly founded. mate; but both have souls, and when mankind addresses the literal Word, it hears and quickens from its divine life, as our frames, when objects strike them, feel and act from the life within. "With regard,' says he, to the writings of Paul and the other apostles, I have not given them a place in my Arcana Calestia, because they are dogmatic writings merely, and not written in the style of the Word, as are those of the prophets, of David, of the Evangelists, and of the Revelation of St. John. "The reason why the apostles wrote in this style, was, that the first Christian Church was then to begin through them; consequently, the same style as is used in the Word would not have been proper for such doctrinal tenets, which required plain and simple language, suited to the capacities of all readers. "Nevertheless, the writings of the apostles are very good books for the church, inasmuch as they insist on the doctrine of charity, and of faith done in the Gospels, and in the Revelation of St. from charity, as strongly as the Lord Himself has John, as will appear evidently to any one who studies these writings with attention. "In the Apocalypse Revealed, No. 417, I have proved that the words of Paul, in Rom. iii. 28, are quite misunderstood, and that the doctrine of justutes the theology of the reformed churches, tification by faith alone, which at present constiis built on an entirely false foundation.' 303. "This assertion of the Word's divinity implies a counter statement regarding the "The style of the Word consists throughout writers of the Bible. The more the genius in correspondences, and thence effects an immein any work, the less is the work its author's; diate communication with heaven; but the style the more the property, the less can it be of these dogmatic writings is quite different, owned. No man ever claims his inspired mo- having, indeed, communication with heaven, but ments, until afterwards, when he is dis-only mediately or indirectly. inspired. The divinity however of a work abnegates its instruments, let them have been as busy as they will: they are mere tools, chosen only to deposit the work in some one place or age. The inspired penmen then are simply clerks, notwithstanding that their names appear upon the letter, fitting it to Jewish or Christian times. The patriarchs, prophets, psalmists and evangelists are not holy men; they are not even venerable for the most part, but the voice of sacred history itself generally assails them. Their names,' says Swedenborg, are unknown in heaven.' There are no saints with earthly names, but only sinners, scarlet more or less. God's is all the glory, but Abraham, Moses, David or John, are plain mortals like ourselves, entitled to no great consideration when their office is laid aside, and their divine insignia are put 306. "We notice in the doctrine of Scripoff. The men after God's own heart,' are ture, as throughout the author's works, a only so for a time and a mission: every one is turning of the tables in the matter of evidence. 'a man after God's own heart' for the func- Instead of commencing inquiries with no betions that he does best. Holiness is not in-liefs, he accepts the most universal creeds as volved. The Jews, the chosen people of God, the hypotheses of investigation, and puts them were chosen because they were the worst of to the fact. To commence from nothing, is people, for redemption begins at the bottom. to end in nothing, as the present biblical In admitting therefore the divinity of the scholars illustrate. But Swedenborg takes Word, we rid ourselves of the Bible writers, the divinity and holiness of the Bible as his and their idiosyncrasies; and we know that postulate, and then looks for the like in the as the fixed Word was produced through them text. His method, to say the least, has ended they necessarily occupy the lowest stratum of in no reductio ad absurdum, but the interprehuman history. tation gained has confirmed the truth of the 304. "We have not space here to mention preliminaries. No writer has shown so subthe various modes of inspiration (by voices, lime a quality in the Bible as Swedenborg, visions, &c.) recounted by Swedenborg from none has added to the probability of its divine the facts of the case and the letter of the origin so practical and scientific a demonstra. Scripture, and which he himself also expe- tion. If wisdom and beauty shown in nature, rienced for the instruction's sake: they are be God's evidence there, then by parity of indeed interesting, and comport with cir- reason, wisdom and goodness expounded in cumstances that are at this day coming to Scripture should be the witness of his Word light, at the same time that they contrast, in the latter sphere. The theorem of plenary cœlo, with metaphysical philosophy. inspiration, or the contrary, can only be setWe can only however notify to the reader, tled by this procedure, which makes one prothat Swedenborg has given their theory from cess for all truths; but never by what are the experimental or real, and biblical side, called 'evidences' proceeding from void hearts for there is much in the Bible upon the sub- and unbelieving understandings. If nature ject, when it is looked for with a scientific even were investigated by the latter, it would never declare its author, or let its unhappy 305. "It may here be expedient to give questioner escape from the labyrinth of its Swedenborg's dictum on the Epistles, upon contradictions and interpolations. toto aim. Faith, Life, and Providence. for their greatest good. Upon the subject of 307. "The Doctrine of Faith in Sweden- predestination, Swedenborg maintains that all Spiritual Diary. borg's writings occupies a part of great sim- are predestined to heaven, and it is their own plicity. Faith, says he, is an inward acknowl- doing if they do not arrive thither. Momenedgment of the truth, which comes to those taneous salvation from immediate mercy is who lead good lives from good motives. If impossible, and the belief in it, is the fiery ye will do the works ye shall know of the flying serpent of the church,' which raises doctrine.' Faith therefore is the eye of sensual evils to a new deadliness of sting, and charity. Spiritual clearsightedness is its emi- moreover imputes damnation to the Lord. nent attribute. It is not the organon of mysteries, for there is no belief in what we do not understand. There may be suspension 311. "We now turn aside for a moment of the judgment, but never faith. The high- from Swedenborg's published works, to his est angels do not know what faith is, and when posthumous Diary, the last date in which is they hear of any one believing what he does the 3d of December, 1764. This day book not understand, they say, 'this person is out he had begun in 1747, perhaps after finishing of his senses.' With them, faith is only truth. the Adversaria on Genesis and Exodus, the Divine and human knowledges are under the last date in which is February 9th in the latsame class; for both there is the base of ter year. We must attempt to convey to the scientific proof; but with this caution, that reader some notion of this extraordinary each state apprehends only its own objects, Manuscript, which extends over a period of and that practical goodness is the ground seventeen years. We have termed it a Day upon which religious truth can be properly or Book, and such it veritably was in the intenprofitably received. tion of the bookmaker, being written on those 308. "The Doctrine of Life is equally English 'oblong folios' which are so common simple. We are to shun, as sins against God, in our counting houses. In these businesswhatever is forbidden in the ten Command-like volumes thought and vision are duly 'enments, and to do the duties of our callings. tered' with the greatest regularity; in the The shunning of evils as sins is the first ne- earlier part of the work the date is generally cessity; the doing good is possible after that. subjoined to the paragraphs, and here and Charity consists in this course, and faith fol- there parts are crossed out, having been faithlows it by divine ordination. A life of this fully posted,' and 'delivered' into the aukind is the only contribution that each man thor's published books. The whole is in more can make to the New Jerusalem. No one than six thousand paragraphs, of which the however can do good which is really such, from self, but all goodness is from God. first hundred and forty-eight are missing: it makes six closely-printed octavos, and considering the difficulties of the original, to which we can bear witness, it is but fair to mention the name of Tafel, its editor, Professor of Philosophy and Librarian of Tübingen, as an honorable specimen of even a German scholar. 309. "For the rest, our sage is no counsellor of asceticism; he admits us to enjoy the good things of this life, in preparation for those of another; he advocates no self-immolating pietism, but a renunciation of the world during a life in the world;' and as 312. "Almost every reader would smile sense is an everlasting verity, he teaches the ex- doubtfully if he perused a page or two of this pansion of the senses, under the spiritual powers. Diary. He would meet with conversations 310. "In 1764, Swedenborg published at with Moses and Abraham, Aristotle, Cicero Amsterdam a continuation of his work on the and Cæsar Augustus, Charles the XII. of Swedivine attributes, under the title, Angelic Wis- den and Frederic of Prussia, the author of the dom concerning the Divine Providence, in whole Duty of Man, and other of the deceased, which he identifies Providence with the Lord's and as the belief practically runs, the annihigovernment of mankind. He states the ends lated worthies and notables of history. He which the Divine Providence has in view, would find them treated as living men and real whereof the first and last is the formation of forces. He would learn of strange punishan angelic heaven out of the human race. ments and new criminalities; of fathomless He then propounds various laws of the Di- pools of evil; of goodness detected in those vine Providence which are unknown in the that history condemns, and of the mask of exworld, and occupies a considerable part of this cellence quite fallen away from some of her very beautiful Treatise, with setting us right brightest exemplars; of Paul and David [in a upon points on which infidelity founds objec- very low state of spiritual life,] and Mahomet tions, and in short, with vindicating the ways a Christian convert. But let him read on, of God to man. He insists on the universali- and the laugh dies before the supernaturalness ty of Providence, and on its presence with of the unbending context. Moreover amid all men alike, the wicked as well as the good, the narrative, he meets with thoughts of the but the former will not receive its blessings, newest import; with lovely sentiments fraand their freedom of choice is respected. Hell is the false creation which they make, the Lord sets their places there, and ordains them grant towards God and man; and with lessons pointing life and the world towards plain goals of blessedness. It will be no doubtful contest with him between the sanity and the insanity | He is still associated with his like in male and of the author; strangeness will recede by female company, and he and his, in the charry degrees, overmastered by the moral element light of hell, which is the very falsity of evil, that explains the appearances into truths; and are not unhandsome to themselves.. Such is whatever the verdict be, it will be granted the illusive varnish which in mercy drapes that a profound meaning lurks in even the oddest the bareness of the ugly skeletons of devils forms of this spiritual commonplace book. and satans. 66 Apocalypse. 313. "A great part of it dwells upon un- 314. "We cannot dismiss the Diary withhappy themes, and indeed no book more de-out observing how true Swedenborg is to himranges one's habits of thought than this unre- self in a record whose publication he did not served Diary. Our crotchet of the abstract contemplate. His public words are at one nobleness of spirits, receives there a rude shock. with his secret thoughts; he is as grave in Our father's souls are no better than our- heart as in deportment. To one who has selves; no less mean and no less bodily; and perused the work, the question of sincerity their occupations are often more unworthy nevermore occurs; he would as soon moot than our own. A large part of their doings the sincerity of a tree. And indeed the inreads like police reports. Even the angels quiry after sincerity, in the ordinary sense, are but good men in a favoring sphere: we goes but a little way in the determination of may not worship them, for they do not deserve such a case. it; at best, they are of our brethren, the prophets. It is very matter of fact. Death is no change in substantials. The same prob- 315. "Besides the Diary, Swedenborg for lems recur after it, and man is left to solve several years had been engaged upon an extenthem. Nothing but goodness and truth are sive work on the Apocalypse, which is published thriving. There is no rest beyond the tomb, among his posthuma, but which he did not but in the peace of God which was rest before complete. The original edition of the Apocit. This is the last extension of ethics, and alypse Explained occupies four large 4to volwhile it deprives the grave of every vulgar umes. That he intended to produce it is eviterror, it lends it the terrors of this wicked dent from the clearly-written manuscript with world, which itself is the reign and empire of occasional directions to the printer, and from the dead. Moreover while the Diary abol- the first volume of the copy being marked in ishes our spiritual presumptions, it justifies to the titlepage with London, 1759; which rennearly the whole extent the low sentimental ders it moreover probable that he had begun credence on ghostly subjects, as well as the the work after finishing the Arcana in 1756. traditions and the fears of simple mankind. However this may be, we learn that on one The earthly soul cleaves to the ground and occasion he heard a voice from heaven, saygravitates earthwards, dragging the chain of ing, "Enter into your bed chamber, and shut the impure affections contracted in the world; the door, and apply to the work begun on the spirits haunt their old remembered places, Apocalypse, and finish it within two years." attached by undying ideas: hatred, revenge, The Apocalypse Explained is one of the finest pride and lust persist in their cancerous of his works, interpreting that book of the spreading, and wear away the incurable heart- Testament down to the tenth verse of the strings: infidelity denies God most in spirit nineteenth chapter, and pregnant, if we may and the spiritual world; nay, staked on death use the expression, with a number of distinct it ignores eternity in the eternal state with treatises on important subjects; but it has gnashing teeth and hideous clinches: and the been supposed that he thought it too volumiproof of spirit and immortal life is farther off nous and elaborate. Certain it is, that he than ever. The regime of the workhouse, abandoned the work, and set himself to prothe hospital, and the madhouse is erected into duce an exposition in a smaller compass, a remorseless universe, self-fitted with steel which he published under the title of Apocfingers and awful chirurgery; and no hope alypse Revealed. lies either in sorrow or poverty, but only in one divine religion, which hell excludes with all its might. Human nature quails before 316. "It does not appear whether Swesuch tremendous moralities; freedom tries to denborg revisited Sweden from 1762 to 1764: abjure the life that it is, and calls upon the he may have resided in Amsterdam during mountains and rocks to cover and to crush it, the whole period, or he may have paid a visit A new phase appears in the final state; the to England; but it is probable that he rememory of the skies is lost; baseness accepts turned home during the latter year, for in the its lot, and falsehood becomes self-evident: first half of the next year he was again in wasting ensues to compressed limb and facul- Sweden. Soon, however, he set forth upon ty, and the evil spirit descends to his mineral new travels, and in 1765 came from Stockestate, a living atom of the second death. holm to Gottenburg, where, during a week's Impossibility is the stone of his heart, and stay, while waiting for a vessel to England, crookedness the partner of his understanding. he accidentally met Dr. Beyer, Professor of Meeting with Dr. Beyer. |